Acting White: Life In The Crosswalk – Part II

Some commenter’s on this blog voiced their disapproval of Part I (here), on the grounds that external ills, historical and present-day, outweigh the damage of self-indulging counter-cultured behavior. And some thought that I was squeezing hard to wring anything telling out of youthful slow-walking (sauntering) of the crosswalk and a little ‘harmless’ traffic disruption.

Despite my intention to let it rest, here I go again. Some of you know that I volunteered mentoring time to minority high school students in Oakland this recent school semester. One of the notable students was a black boy who seemed bright, but who the teacher said would probably flunk the 11th grade because of truancy. She also questioned if he would eventually graduate.

So imagine my surprise today in seeing this same young man ‘sauntering’ in the crosswalk before me, as I patiently sat at a light near downtown Oakland. When the light changed, his pace remained slow, but his attention turned to the nearest drivers, as Oakland is not Berkeley and some driver just might ‘accidentally’ make him into a hood ornament.

All this is to suggest that there is some level of correlation between the attitude of black males on the street and in the classroom, or at home (for that matter), as my parents suspected. They expected me to go about my day with assertive purpose, even if that purpose was just hanging out. Acting as an obstacle to others was, at minimum, practicing to be an obstacle to one’s own self. That was my point with the earlier post and I am sticking to it.

I will hopefully see that young man next fall, as I have not given up on him. I have a few months to come up with a more persuasive reason why he should put his young (academic) life in gear and step on the gas.

James C. Collier

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